What dreams are made of
by Olive nerd
Summary: A short figment sequel to 'A Twist in the Legends.' A familiar face returns, and LiJuan is willing to cope with one message that just may encourage views and hearts to connect in harmony.


What dreams are made of

**This is sort of a sequel one-shot for 'A twist in the legends' I formatted together in my mind. LiJuan is now a warrior with the Furious Five, yet there was one teeny tiny misinterpreted discussion spoken about strangers between the giant panda and her goose Baba. Enjoy!**

_At the Sacred Peach Tree of Heavenly Wisdom…_

Darkening clouds slinked over the abundant lands abandoned by sleepy peasant folk. From where an average citizen could witness, villagers were seeking slumber and cradling their youth to bed after the festivities. Every animal in the Valley of Peace was always well aware of the late hours held for the Qi Xi Festival gatherings, with it being an ancestral tradition passed down from each thriving and blossoming generation. One would naturally assume the Valley of Peace was sleeping soundly and safe and harm, but the Soothsayer was not your average citizen 'naturally' observing the valley bellow her.

Gathering her potions and thick blankets, the Soothsayer skipped with an urgent stride up and down the hills to one joyfully dutiful goose's restaurant home below. It was utterly natural for her to feel the formidable but lengthily ominous caresses of night beneath her hooves, and they echoed effortlessly through the muffling elements of night their lullaby. Vengeance was what the dark spirits hungered for, and the elderly goat, for the first time in several aeons, feared for the lives of the innocent.

But the worst part for her was to break the news to the one go-getting warrior with an attitude and kindhearted smile that shattered the heart of her corrupted and adoptive son.

_In LiJuan's bedroom…_

Her room was a gigantic pigsty when she jumped on her flat mattress. Jewelry littered the bright sewed carpets her father imported from Zhong Province for some tasty radishes, dresses were wrinkled with missing robes around the cobwebbed corners, and the gifts she bought from Gongmen City were napped by some sleazy crook. "Lucky me," she mused bitterly before sitting up to change out of her teal kimono. The sashes and obviously the shoes were long gone to who knows where, and LiJuan longed for the beads she wore on that sunny evening.

"You know why they're gone," she whispered to herself in self hatred and faced the mirror with teary oceanic eyes. "Look at you; fur frizzed, teary, and napped! It's not the jewelry your missing…"Slapping her socks on her wooden vanity, LiJuan vigorously changed from her kimono to her cheapest pair of white pajamas. "Tao…Forgive me…"

She knew she was acting clearly more spoiled than the preteen piglets pickpocketing neighbors after throwing tantrums at their parents for more money. Well, at least, she thought she was. Her goals and dreams were firmly settled with a structured and accomplished base; she was a warrior, proved her worth in her awesome adventure and…met some important friends…

Maybe she was only melancholic before bed because she ate too much rice cakes her father, Mr. Ping, gave her and Po after her apology and his 'rice oath'. "But he stuffed his face with a gorging limit three times the size of mine! So..maybe I miss…them…"

Images of her beloved comrades taunted her; Tao was nagging her about being 'pudgy,' Geming was aiding her shyly with friendly hints about Aiguo, Aiguo was hitting the high life with a thumbs up and audible voice, Jian was hitting on his serpent princess with all-too cheesy pickup lines, Shu Quing was blushing femininely with a flowing tail stroking her insect partner, and Ehuang was flushing ever so slightly herself at the mention of one Dragon Warrior. How LiJuan longed to have stayed with her companions was a bittersweet mystery, regarding the very fact that they were astral drops of the Furious Five and their red panda master.

Speaking of the master, LiJuan's mind crept back to the awkward exchange over the hills about what had happened back in the Jade Palace. It wasn't everyday that a student could leave her master pondering over an untold illusion, and LiJuan instinctively realized that Shifu and the others had their own perspectives of that 'dream'. He was going to come back with more questions until the giant panda forced herself to confess.

"Great," she caustically moaned, settling under the thin cotton blankets. "I bet Po will threaten to use my back fur as a rug for the Training Room again…which will probably result with my knuckles in his smug grin and foot slammed in his gut.." Erasing the furious assumptions of her mind, LiJuan yawned musically and laid back on her mushy pillow into a much needed slumber. Po hinted to her once that even when safe in your own home, Master Tigress or Shifu would surely give you a welcoming wake up call, especially when 'fashionably' late.

Suddenly, she felt wet droplets trickle down the top of her head and drip down her chin. She knew she wasn't bawling nor producing sweat. The temperature in her room was beyond relaxing during the late night hour. Unable to fall asleep, LiJuan sat up and glanced around her setting. The room was still a disaster she'd be forced to handle after morning training, and no other being was visibly seen. She processed a deep sigh and quickly threw her pillow over her head. "Gosh, when does a panda get any sleep around here? Have I been absent for that long…"

"More than you'd like to believe…" LiJuan was suddenly gagged by two snickering and rotting mice and thrown off her mattress. But before she could flip herself back on her two feet, sharp knives dug into her pajama corners, barely missing scales of her fur. "And here I am for one last message, my dear…" Cold, red eyes sent shivers down her being, and the truth as hardcore as Tigress' fists settled and jagged furiously into the gears in her mind.

"You…you can't just..you're DEAD!" The albino peacock dodged her kicks and flung the knives near them, hinting his wrath.

"Sad story it is, love. And now that we've got all of this valley under the Underworld's control, please stand still while I offer you an explanation."

"Never! You tried to take Po!" When she was finally able to pull the knives out of her wooden, damaged floors, which Mr. Ping would be soon very ticked about, she body slammed and pinned him to a small but surprisingly perfect space in her room and tried to use the knives to pin him into place. "I think you deserve the explanation and sentence for your boasting self out of my room! I won, can you NOT just accept that clear fact and move on- HEY!" Shen kicked her in the stomach and aimed two knives at her throat while tossing two others to his rodent buddies to aim at the back of her head.

"Never…Never have I met an opponent so..perplexing…" Shen was barely digging the closer knives into her throat know, causing an unnoticed trail of blood to escape from LiJuan's throat and stain the tip of the knife. During his intense stare, LiJuan only shrugged as much as she could under the weapon and eye pressure.

"Thanks…I guess…Look is this gonna take all night? I'm kinda in the middle of a huge, eagerly anticipating sleep secession which in my book means no sleepovers…"She weakly attempted to smile. "Being the next master and all, I have an improved schedule over scrubbing platters of dirty dishes so if you would just excuse-" Shen jammed her back on the floor, with the knives still at her throat.

"Rodents! Find the shadowed shackles in your lord's cavern, and bring them to ME!" The two tiny creatures only glanced steadily at each other, knowing either Shen or their Underworld emperor would have them grilled and tarred if disobeying verbal orders.

"What…for your…albino…ness?" Shen slashed the chest of the questioning rodent and tripped his comrade.

"Let that be a warning SERVANTS," Shen spat. "Just sneak along the pillars and get the shackles!" Giving LiJuan a predatory frown, Shen murmured, "a guest will be summoned by her rightful will…"

"Over my missing shoes," LiJuan shot back just as venomously. Shen ignored her and watched the rodents scurry off into the unknown vortex in between the land of the living and the rotten fields of the dead.

"So Shen…are you always this….care..less?" Shen raised his wing villainously, only to receive a chuckle from LiJuan.

"I'd strike you-"

"No you wouldn't….When did you when I left my dreams for good?"

"They weren't dreams-"

"-Alright whatever way you want to put them old friend, but listen!" She struggled in her uncomfortable position over the rough wooden boards and muttered, "whatever has happened, fate played itself out…And even if you won, what would that make me? Your slave? Concubine? Wife….It's just totally unrealistic, dude! Life's not a game for an unsatisfied peacock…or panda….to go searching for…We have our dreams…Some come true, and some don't. But do you know what makes dreams real and what lifts your soul up higher than any point in your greatest wishes?" Shen turned away from her, allowing her to breath and eye the knives in his feathery grasp without fear. "Life in general…and its people…its family members…friends…I've had my share of fun. I'm now a warrior baby!" Giving him a pat on the shoulder, LiJuan's gaze dropped to a more sympathetic note. "But what about you, Shen? You need to go back and serve the Underworld master…king..snake dude and someday he might…."

"He'll never release me.." Tears stained Shen's burnt face, once it was revealed under the crisp moonlight entering LiJuan's opened window. Lijuan wiped his tears away and eloped him into a plush embrace.

"He will…once you repay for what you've done. I've forgiven you, that goat lady's probably got you on her good side…right? So once you do your deeds…I'm sure you'll come back…just not here…" Shen gasped and gazed at LiJuan with fear penetrating his red eyes. He was now on the vulnerable point, with his eyes boggling out and his feathers ruffled and like a young hatchlings, but not even sides mattered now. He finally found his true opponent, his purpose. But now that she was asking him to settle in the next life, Shen was reaching the brink of another mental breakdown. Who was she? Was she more than she had always seemed to be…the champion who deified him? Or had she been much more than he had blindly looked over arrogantly?

Shen released LiJuan and flickered some yellow specks onto himself, disappearing back to his place, his resting place. "i'll give word to those rodents…and reasons…" LiJuan nodded while tears overtook her vision.

Once he was barely visible in her bedroom, LiJuan mustered up a grin to break the tense mood. "Find some lucky gal your own species dude…." She broke down once more as she croaked away from her sight. "Please…" Two arms patted behind her back, and LiJuan tried to flip over the small animals, only to be whacked and pinned into a nostril grip.

"Hypocrite," one sonorous voice teased, handing her a handkerchief to sneeze in. "The spirits have settled back to their master, Soothsayer. But what do you propose we do for a second time?"

"There is no second time, Master Shifu." She delicately cupped LiJuan's face and sprinkled earth brown dust on her. "Let her resume to her sleep, and no hits."

"Hits?"

"You know precisely what I mean, old man!" Once they exited out the window, LiJuan swayed back into her bed, feeling the effects of whatever kind of dust the elderly goat gave her kick in strongly.

"Swirling stars…Swirling knives..Swirling hopes…" Downstairs while Po was retrieving a late midnight dumpling snack, he shook his head pitifully after hearing the exchange.

"And Baba thinks that I'm gonna get married sooner…Wait till the guys hear this!"

**I hope you enjoyed this! This was just a single idea I thought of and is loosely based on the Labyrinth 'ending' and how I viewed the movie. In my perspective, I see both Sarah and Jareth as two longing people with their enticing dreams, but they both realized that dreams can only be accomplished with your fair share in reality. So that's why I believe that Sarah had to do what she had to do with her final words, even though I also think Sarah and Jareth are as romantic as Jack and Rose from Titanic!**

**But even though I've hoped, I know that the purpose of that delightful and treasurable movie was to inform us dreamers that dreams are visions that give us our wishes with a vivid view, and we cannot waste our lives hoping and not doing anything to make them an even more remarkable reality. It's sad but true, and it's not even as tragic when achieved! Thank you, and i hope you understood my message behind this short fanfic hear!**


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